


that you tender her

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Two Gentlemen of Verona - Shakespeare
Genre: F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Globe 2016 Production, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The men had left, and there was an arm underneath her arm. Silvia stirred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that you tender her

**Author's Note:**

> An immediate response to the Shakespeare's Globe touring production, which ends - after the attempted rape and the reconciliation of Proteus and Valentine - with Silvia and Julia onstage alone. Julia helps Silvia to her feet, and then to the microphone, for the bitterest Globe closing song I've seen.

The men had left, and there was an arm underneath her arm. Silvia stirred.

Julia’s eyes met hers. “Will you come with me, sister?”

“Sister?” Silvia asked. She was almost surprised to find she had a voice at all, it had so thoroughly deserted her when Proteus finally let go her arm, and let her fall away from his too-bruising grip. “By rights you should have the cursing of me, for letting those praises which were owed to you, be sown in mine ear these past weeks.”

Julia’s touch was gentle, raising Silvia up without pressing. “Nay, I think we were both undone by ill-favoured loving, and you have suffered most of it. Surfeit wounds as ill as absence, both resemble true affection but little.”

Silvia nodded at that, no more in answer. She looked towards the path, where they should follow.

Julia looked after her. “Fair sister-” She paused. “But I see an unhappy look upon your face, already much abused with sorrows. I shall not claim the kinship, if it grieves you so.”

“Not ‘sister’,” Silvia assured her. “But merely ‘fair’. I have heard it oft of late, and from those I would scarce think of.”

Julia continued without pause. “Brave sister. Faithful sister. Kind sister, for have I not your purse, given in love of me before we met? Betray’d sister, they await their prizes.”

Silvia shuddered. “You wish to go.”

“I know not what I wish. I followed after him who taught me how to wish, and risked all for he who spurned me and who knew me not. And now he wishes me again, yet should I go?”

“Valentine was constant in his love,” Silvia said. She did not believe it even as the words fell from her lips.

“Their truer loves, I think, lie in each other and their honour than any softer parts.” Julia’s eyes are soft and grey, hung about with tears unshed, and it is like a mirror of a woman whom Silvia is not, quite.

“I think it so,” Silvia agreed. She thought of the ease with which even Valentine had offered her as a proof of his forgiveness, a toy he would give his new-recovered friend, though not his enemy. It was little comfort that he would have fought Thurio to keep her, so shortly since he offered her to Proteus.

“I said it once,” Julia offered, “that I was traitor to myself, if I loved not Proteus, and bending to his wishes.”

“And I as well,” Silvia replied, “of Valentine and his love.”

“But lately I have not been myself.” Julia tugged back her hair, though it lent her less of the disguise now Silvia knew the trick of it. “I have been Sebastian, page to Sir Proteus, and like Julia in following his wishes, yet _not_ Julia.”

“You had the reason for it,” Silvia said.

“Ay, and we have reasons yet to mask ourselves, who find us ta’en as prizes by husbands such as these. What was your plan, Silvia, if you had ‘scaped the woods?”

“To Mantua,” Silvia said, “And banishment with Valentine.”

“I am not Valentine,” Julia said. “But I will go with thee, wherever thou wilst, if you will have me. I can cloak myself as man, and you as maid, or t’other way about, if you wish it so. Or both as men, and we shall seek our fortunes, as our would-be husbands did before.”

“Not both as maids,” Silvia said quietly.

“No.” Julia dropped her hair again at this, fair wave crashing against her cheek. “For there is safety in manhood, if not our maidenheads. Tis a hard truth, but I believe it so.” Her hand is delicate on Silvia’s bruised arm.

“All I have about me is the clothes I stand in. We have no letters, no names, and no ways to go.”

“Ah,” Silvia said. “And me the same, save your purse and the ring which Proteus returned to me. We must pick a moment, bear our griefs a little while. We play the happy lovers, win our dowers, our fathers’ smiles anew. We take the fortunes given to our husbands for our own. And when we are cloistered in as sisters, before our marriage day, under cover of night we slip our gyves.”

“We fly?”

“Tis that,” said Julia, “else wait until the wedding night, and end it with a knife across his throat.” There was something in her eyes which surprised Silvia, little though they knew each other – some fearful wit, a smile in darkness. It made her smile back, and Julia went on, “but though that would give some satisfaction, and if I thought you willed it, sister...”

“No,” Silvia said. “There is too grave a risk, to life and soul, and if instead we flee-“

“They will live in shame,” Julia said. “And we in penury, but free as songbirds. We name ourselves, and start ourselves anew.”

“And shall we sing?” Silvia asked. “I have forgotten how, I fear.”

“There will be time for singing,” Julia said. “We must be brave, and silent, just a little longer. But we will write sonnets to the open skies, and sing them to each other, when the morning comes.”


End file.
